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Appeared on: Thursday, September 19, 2002
YAMAHA CRW-F1DX CD-RW

1. Installation/Package

YAMAHA
CRW-F1DX CDR-W - Page 1

- Introduction

After
having tested the internal IDE drive (CRW-F1E), we were very excited to see
the CRW-F1DX arrived in our labs. The new model from the CRW-F1 series is actual
the external version of its twin brother CRW-F1E (already tested) and comes
with an attractive look and two different connection interface. We compare both
Yamaha drives to see their performance differences, due to different firmware
revision.

- Embedded Technologies

The CRWF1 series contain several new technologies. We have already discussed
most of them in our CRW-F1E review but we will sum it up one more time.

The
CRW-F1 is the first drive to offer a Laser Labelling System with the name DiscT@2.
The full CAV technology and precise control of the key elements of recording,
(specifically: tracking, rotation, and laser intensity and positioning) allows
text and graphic data to be tattooed to the media's data surface after the writing
stage is complete.

Under
this mode, the system widens the lands and pits during recording. This significantly
reduces jitter and improves audio and music recording quality. The new Advanced
Audio Master Quality mode now supports 1x and 8x writing speeds as well as the
original 4x speed mode. You can select proper writing speed for the media in
use, or use the Best mode allowing the CRW-F1 to determine the best writing
speed.

The
F1 series maintains a constant rotation speed from the beginning of the recording
process, on the inner tracks of the disc, all the way to the tracks at the outer
edge. The spindle motor of the CD-R unit maintains a constant disc rotation
speed of 8700 rpm throughout the entire writing process, while the actual writing
speed smoothly increases from 19x to 44x.

Ultra
Speed sets the new standard for CD-RW Rewriting at 24x and gives you two high-speed
rewriting options depending on the type of rewriting that you need to do. Full
CAV mode offers 24x rewriting for random access packet data rewriting, while
High-Quality Partial CAV mode does the same for conventional data rewriting.

CD-MRW
offers packet-writing capabilities that have not been available until now. Specifically,
it has made writing and re-writing files on a CD-RW as easy as to and from a
floppy disc while reducing disc-formatting time from 10 minutes down to about
2 and vastly improving management capabilities for damaged disc sectors.

CD-RW Audio Track Edit makes editing a finished CD-RW as easy as editing an
MD. Erase the final track or add new songs directly to the CD, without first
having to save WAVE files to your hard drive and erasing the entire CD-RW disc,
and then play it on your CD player.

Yamaha's
original technology - SafeBurn features an 8MB memory buffer, Buffer Underrun
Protection, and Optimum Write Speed Control. These three resources combine to
provide the best possible writing environment and further optimize reliability.

The price of the CRW-F1ZDX is $279.99 in the US market. The actual retail
price probably would be even lower.

There are also two more external versions of the CRW-F1 series with different
connection interface:

CRW-F1UX (External USB2.0/1.1)

CRW-F1SX (External Ultra SCSI)

The external case is impressive and looks solid and stable. The colour is silver
with a pair of black plastic stripes on the sides of the drive. The Yamaha logo
is embossed on the top of the drive.

The front panel of the YAMAHA CRW-F1DX is silver, not white, with a grey "YAMAHA"
logo. In addition you will find, the headphone jack, the volume selector and
the eject button. The drive has a special "intense blue" LED that
lights up when recording. Above the tray, there is another LED that lights to
purple-white (fluorescent) colour when the drive is idle. Lastly the drive has
a black tray, as first introduced with the CRW3200 series:

In rear panel, you will find the power connector, the power button, audio
output connectors and the interface connectors. The Yamaha F1-DX offers two
IEEE1394 and one USB 2.0 connectors. User is free to choose the desired interface,
and plug the drive to his PC easily and fast. According to the interface choice,
user should move the interface switcher on the right or left, for IEEE1994 or
USB2.0.

- Installation

The
YAMAHA F1-DX was installed either with the IEEE1394 (Firewire) and with the
USB2.0 connection interfaces. Under WinXP, the drive will be detected automatically.
Win98SE users will have to install additional drivers that are included in the
attached software disc. The drive with the Firewire cable was recognized as:

, while with the USB2.0 as:

In both cases, the drive is identified as a "YAMAHA CRW-F1E"
under the CD-R software. The drive is a July 2002 model and came with initial
firmware revision v1.0C. Lastly, we used the latest Nero v5.5.9.9, CloneCD v4.0.1.10
and Ahead InCD v3.37 for the recording tests.

- Specifications

Nero info tool reports that the drive supports 44X reading and writing, the
firmware installed is the v1.0C and buffer underrun protection is available.
The "SafeBurn" features an 8MB memory buffer, buffer underrun protection
and Optimum Write Speed Control. The drive also supports the following writing
modes: Track-at-Once, Disc-at-Once, Session-at-Once, Multisession, packet writing
and Mount Rainier.

2. Data Reading Tests

Yamaha CRW-F1DX and its internal brother seem to have no differences in
the data reading performance. The average reading speed is the same for both
drives, and none of them reached the promised 44X maximum speed. The seek time
results are also identical.

In the HS-RW reading tests we used the HS-RW media that come with the retail
package of each drive, recorded in the correspondent maximum speed supported.
For the YAMAHA drive, we used Ultra speed 24X HS-RW media. The YAMAHA CRW-F1DX
read the disc at 32.98X average speed.

3. Error Correction Tests

YAMAHA
CRW-F1DX CDR-W- Page 3

Error Correction Tests

In the following tests we examine the reading error correction capabilities
of YAMAHA CRW-F1DX.

- EAC CD-R Test Disc

- Introduction

We used the testing methodology as described in EAC website. The CD-R test
disc includes 5 scratches and a black triangle defect. Using EAC's BURST mode,
we ripped the test disc with two different files speeds (max & 4X). The
attached analyse.exe software used to get the necessary results.

The graph tells a lot about the abilities of the drive. The quality of the
optical system (and/or of the error correction capabilities of the firmware)
is shown in at which time index the error start. The error hiding qualities
are shown when the wedge gets bigger.

The grid of the graph has the following means:

The X position of a grid line is always a start of a new minute position
on the CD (in play time, up to 74 min).

The Y axis shows the dB(A) value of the error in the extracted file.
dB(A) is a weighting/curve that does not look as much at high and very low
frequencies as at medium frequencies, using an A-weighting curve.

The graph shows a range of 6 dB(A) down to -120.0 dB(A). Each line represents
6 dB(A) of volume (6 dB(A) louder means that the sound is double as loud)

" For the test CD, everything below -60 dB (A) is quite acceptable
for error correction. Anything higher than -42 dB (A) is quite critical, and
you would hear that in any case. Of course that also depends on the surrounding
music/noise. If the rest of the song is absolutely silent, you will probably
even hear a -96 dB (A) - only by using 24 bit audio files. If it is hidden
in -6 dB music, you will probably not hear -72 dB (A) (or even -66 dB (A)
anymore...

- Explanation

After the analyze finishes, we will get a detailed report about the various
errors:

- Errors total tells about the total number of wrong stereo samples.
This includes areas of wrong samples that may include some correct samples.

- Errors Loudness is the number of FFT analysis done. For that the average
and maximum value tells the power difference of the two signals. No acoustic
model is used for this calculation, so the audible error may differ from these
values.

- Error Muting tells something about error hiding. On bad errors (or
bad error hiding techniques), the last error free sample is held for some time
until a new valid sample is found. The number of these mutings is given as first
result, following the average and maximum sample length of these mutings.

- Skips are occurring when the sync was lost and the drive had to reposition
again (and started on a slightly different position). Non-accurate stream devices
would loose the sync very often and smaller and bigger skips occur (thus samples
are missing or extraneous). The average and maximum values denote the length
in samples of such skips.

- Total Score is calculated according to the previous errors. The higher
score a drive gets, the better!

- Test Results (4X Reading)

The YAMAHA CRW-F1DX at 4X, starts reporting errors earlier than with full speed
(12mins), but the corrected data ,within the black defect, will stay nearly
always below -60 dB(A), which is nearly un-audible if it is surrounded by loud
music. The 5 scratches are not fully corrected, but stay below -54 dB(A). As
the test results showed, the CRW-F1DX gets 79.1 score out of 100 (max).

Errors total

Num: 6445676

Errors (Loudness) dB(A)

Num: 24061

Avg: -76.8 dB(A)

Max: -37.7

Error Muting Samples

Num: 555

Avg: 1.1 Samples

Max: 2

Skips Samples

Num: 0

Avg: 0.0 Samples

Max: 0

Total Test Result

79.1 points (of 100.0 maximum)

- Test Results (Max Reading)

The CRW-F1DX, at full speed, starts reporting errors at 16mins. The errors
within the black triangle defect, stay below -60 dB(average), but there is also
a spike up to -30dB. The 5 scratches are not repaired and the first scratch
reaches -12 dB, producing a score of 74.3, out of 100 (max).

Errors total

Num: 5990032

Errors (Loudness) dB(A)

Num: 23068

Avg: -76.9 dB(A)

Max: -14.6

Error Muting Samples

Num: 518

Avg: 1.1 Samples

Max: 2

Skips Samples

Num: 2

Avg: 6.0 Samples

Max: 6

Total Test Result

74.3 points (of 100.0 maximum)

- ABEX TCD-721R

- Introduction

This test disc includes artificial scratches with lengths from 1.8 mm to 3.0
mm.

Using the ABEX TCD-714 as the reference disc, we created the reference.wav
file that is needed for the comparison. We ripped the disc at full speed, using
EAC's copy range and after running the analyse.exe software we got the error
graph.

- Test Results (4X speed)

The ABEX TCD-721 causes problems to most of the tested drives, including the
YAMAHA CRW-F1DX. The drive reports errors early, at 12mins, but stay below -66
dB. After 20mins, the errors reach -52 dB (average), while many spikes reach
up to -10 dB! The drive's overall score is 62.3 out of 100 (max).

Errors total

Num: 15108040

Errors (Loudness) dB(A)

Num: 49841

Avg:-71.4 dB(A)

Max: -10.2

Error Muting Samples

Num: 4566

Avg: 1.1 Samples

Max: 86

Skips Samples

Num: 4

Avg: 297.0 Samples

Max: 588

Total Test Result

62.3 points (of 100.0 maximum)

- Test Results (Max speed)

At the maximum reading speed, the drive got a better score (70.0) compared
to the 4X setting. This can be explained, since the Yamaha CRW-F1 series doesn't
support minimum of 4X reading speed, but 10X. The ripping speed in either 4X/Max
setting was close, so the results are also close

Errors total

Num: 15231564

Errors (Loudness) dB(A)

Num: 50203

Avg:-71.4 dB(A)

Max: -11.0

Error Muting Samples

Num: 4593

Avg: 1.1 Samples

Max: 100

Skips Samples

Num: 4

Avg: 6.0 Samples

Max: 6

Total Test Result

70.0 points (of 100.0 maximum)

- ABEX TCD-726

- Introduction

The ABEX TCD-726 includes three kinds of defects, interruption, black dots
and fingerprints are prepared in this disc. The interruption defects are sized
from 0.5 mm to 1.0 mm. The black dots are from 0.4 mm to 1.0 mm. Lastly, the
fingerprints are from 65 to 75 micro meters.

- Test Results (4X Speed)

At 4X reading speed, the drive showed very good behavior. Only few errors occurred
during the 26-28minutes, under -60 dB. The drive gets a high score of 92.4 out
of 100 (max).

Errors total

Num: 1280

Errors (Loudness) dB(A)

Num: 23

Avg:-88.5 dB(A)

Max: -59.8

Error Muting Samples

Num: 0

Avg: 0.0 Samples

Max: 0

Skips Samples

Num: 0

Avg: 0.0 Samples

Max: 0

Total Test Result

92.4 points (of 100.0 maximum)

- Test Results (Max Speed)

At the maximum reading speed, again few errors occurred during the 27-28minutes.
This time the drive got a higher score of 92.6 out of 100 (max), since the maximum
loudness reached -71.9dB compared to the -59.6dB of the 4X reading speed.

Errors total

Num: 2456

Errors (Loudness) dB(A)

Num: 23

Avg:-88.0 dB(A)

Max: -71.9

Error Muting Samples

Num: 0

Avg: 0.0 Samples

Max: 0

Skips Samples

Num: 0

Avg: 0.0 Samples

Max: 0

Total Test Result

92.6 points (of 100.0 maximum)

- Conclusion

Test Disc

Reading Speed

Score

EAC CD-R

4X

79.1

Max

74.3

ABEX TCD-721R

4X

62.3

Max

70.0

ABEX TCD-726

4X

92.4

Max

92.6

Average Score

78.45

The Yamaha CRW-F1DX gets an average 78.45 score out of 100 at our reading
error correction tests.

4. CloneCD Reading Tests

YAMAHA
CRW-F1DX CDR-W- Page 5

CloneCD Tests

- Procedure

We used CloneCD (v4.0.1.10) and 4 original CDs - Serious Sam 2 (SafeDisc
2), Desperados (LaserLock 2), V-Rally 2 Expert (SecuROM 2) and NBA Jam Extreme
(PSX) - in order to test the reading time of the drive. We also tested the reading
performance with backups of the original CDs, since the reading speed varies
between original and backup media. The following pictures show the drive reading/writing
capabilities as CloneCD reports:

- PSX Pressed Media

For this test we used the PSX game 'NBA Jam Extreme' and we ripped the image
to the HD with CloneCD. The CRW-F1DX drive gave the same result with the CRW-F1E.

- SafeDisc v.2 Results

Both Yamaha drives are fast in the SafeDisc v.2 test, and the actual difference
in the performance between them is 1-2 seconds.

- LaserLock v.2 Results

Not much to add here, the drives have the same speed in the
LaserLock v.2 test.

- SecuROM v.2 Results

The expected result again in the SecuROM v.2 test, with both drives to finish
the task in the same time.

5. DAE Tests

YAMAHA
CRW-F1DX CDR-W - Page 6

DAE Tests

- DAE features

- Pressed AudioCD

The YAMAHA CRW-F1DX supports up to 44X DAE. The results showed that there
are not actual differences in the DAE speeds of the two Yamaha drives.

- AudioCD-R media

In the CD-R DAE test, the external drive is slightly faster with 30.6X.

- EAC Secure Extract Ripping mode

EAC's secure extract ripping mode results, which ensures maximum produced
WAV quality. Note that for each drive we used the built-in detection function:

Tested Drives

Average DAE Speed (X)

Pressed

CDR

YAMAHA CRW-F1

7.2

7.3

YAMAHA CRW-F1DX

7.3

7.2

- Advanced DAE Quality

The drive got a 100 score (best) in the Nero CD Speed Advanced DAE test.
The average speed for YAMAHA CRW-F1DX was 30.51X. The drive can also read data
from Lead-in, CD-text and SubChannel.

- CD-Check Audio Test Disc

Error Level

1

2

3

4

5

YAMAHA CRW-F1DX

5/5

5/5

5/5

4/5

0/5

The YAMAHA CRW-F1DX partly fulfilled the forth level requirement of CD-Check
test disc without perfect score (4/5). The drive didn't produce any pops during
the playback process until that level.

- Bad CDR Media results

We used CD DAE 99 software to rip the whole disc (756539616 sectors) to
the hard disk.

Average Speed (X)

Errors

Errors Of Total Disc (%)

YAMAHA CRW-F1DX

Stops reading at 95%

The YAMAHA CRW-F1DX reported read error and stopped at the 95% of the total
process.

- Ripping 90 and 99mins AudioCDs

Tested drives

Ripping up to

YAMAHA CRW-F1DX

99 min

- Reading/Ripping Protected AudioCDs

For the test procedure we used 2 protected AudioCDs, which we
tested in both recognition and ripping (with EAC) processes:

YAMAHA CRW-F1DX can handle both CDS200 and Key2Audio protected audio discs.
This is an issue solved in this 1.0c firmware version, since the IDE model had
problems with the Key2Audio protection.

6. CDR Tests

YAMAHA
CRW-F1DX CDR-W - Page 7

CDR Tests

The CRW-F1DX series support 1X, 4X, 8X, 16X (CLV) and 44X (CAV) writing speeds.
When OWSC (Optimum Writing Control ) is enabled, the drive will select automatically
the best maximum possible recording speed from 8X, 16X (CLV), 20X, 24X, 32X,
36X, 40X and 44X (CAV). You cannot select the speeds between 16X and 44X.

The Optimum Writing Control system, determines the optimum writing speed for
the disc inserted. The feature can be disabled through Nero software, and as
a result, user will be able to record all inserted media at the maximum speed
(44X). With OWSC on/off, you can select all recording speeds (1X-44X). When
OWSC in enabled and a low quality media is used, Nero will report the drop of
recording speed, usually down to 16X:

Using an 80min disc, we can see the drive's start, ending recording speeds,
according to the Nero CD Speed software. The drive starts writing at 19.68X
and gradually reaches almost 44X at the end of an 80min disc:

The drive also supports 40X P-CAV writing speed that reaches up to 32.99 X
average writing speed:

- Recording Tests

YAMAHA CRW-F1DX finished the writing process in 3:07 minutes. The result came
with the IEEE1394 interface, with Sanyo Digital 80min 24X media. With USB2.0
interface the best result we had was 3:08mins. The drive is equal fast in both
IEEE1394/USB2.0 interfaces. The YAMAHA CRW-F1E was faster in our tests by 4secs
and CyberDrive CW088D leads the race at 48X with 156 seconds.

Below is the screenshot of the best recording result:

With USB 2.0 interface, the best results we had are about 3:08mins:

- Overburning Tests

Tested Drive

Writing up to

Yamaha CRW-F1

99mins

The drive can overburn up to 99mins without any problems.

- CD-Text Results

The drive can read/write CD-Text without any problems.

- CloneCD Writing Tests

The CloneCD software reports that the drive supports the DAO-RAW feature.
With the use of proper media, DAO-RAW writing can be performed up to 44X (CAV).
CloneCD doesn't offer any option to disable OWSC. For checking the drive's EFM
correction status, we used 3 different game titles with various SafeDisc 2 versions.
For getting the maximum of them, we used the latest software patches. We used
the Yamaha CRW-F1DX both as reader/writer at maximum reading/recording speed.
We burned two discs for each game (Amplify Weak Sectors On/Off) and the results
are posted in the below table:

Game Title

Tested Drive

SD2 Build

Amplify Weak Sectors On

Amplify Weak Sectors Off

Emperor:Battle of Dune

Creative 52X CD-ROM

v.2.30.021

OK

OK

TEAC 40X CD-ROM

OK

OK

YAMAHA CRWF1-DX
+ Hide CDR

OK

OK

LiteOn LTR-32123S
+ Hide CDR

OK

OK

Max Payne v1.05

Creative 52X CD-ROM

v.2.50.020

OK

OK

TEAC 40X CD-ROM

OK

OK

YAMAHA CRWF1-DX + Hide CDR

OK

OK

LiteOn LTR-32123S
+ Hide CDR

OK

OK

Serious Sam - The Second Encounter v1.07

Creative 52X CD-ROM

v.2.60.052

NO

NO

TEAC 40X CD-ROM

NO

NO

YAMAHA CRWF1-DX
+ Hide CDR

OK

OK

LiteOn LTR-32123S
+ Hide CDR

OK

NO

As the test results showed, the CRWF1DX drive can backup up to SD2 v2.50.020
version without the need of Amplify Weak Sectors. However with the latest v2.51.021+
builds it will not produce 100% correct playback disc. The backup media worked
only in the LiteOn LTR-32123S recorder (with Hide CD-R activated) and the YAMAHA
CRWF1-DX.

7. Writing Quality Tests

YAMAHA
CRW-F1DX CDR-W - Page 8

Writing Quality Tests

We burned CDs mostly with OWSC On with YAMAHA CRW-F1DX. We used Nero 5.5.9.9
for all the recordings. The produced CDs, were measured from DigitalDrives and results
are illustrated in the following table

Brand

C1

Average Burning Time (mins)

Max

Average

SanyoDigital 80min 24x

OWSC On

19

1.4

5:37

OWSC Off

36

5.6

3:07

YAMAHA 80min 24X

OWSC Off

469

54

3:08

FujiFilm 80min 48X

OWSC Off

24

0.8

3:13

CyberDrive 80min 48X

OWSC Off

40

4.6

3:10

Ricoh 80min 32X

OWSC On

28

1.5

3:21

SmartBuy 80min 32X

OWSC On

51

6.2

5:34

Mitsubishi Chemicals 80min 48X

OWSC On

18

0.7

3:09

Mitsui 80min 40X

OWSC On

24

3.1

3:09

Maxell 80min 32X

OWSC On

33

3.7

3:20

CyberDrive 80min 40X

OWSC On

40

3.4

3:10

Mitsui 80min 32X

OWSC On

23

1.5

3:18

FujiFilm 80min 40X

OWSC On

18

1.0

3:10

ASUS 80min 48X

OWSC On

30

4.1

3:09

Mitsubishi Chemicals 80min 40X

OWSC On

38

1.7

3:08

Taiyo Yuden 80min 32X

OWSC On

15

1.2

3:20

CyberDrive 80min 48X

OWSC On

35

3.9

3:10

Prodisc 80min 32X

OWSC On

25

2.1

5:34

Ciba Plasmon 80min 48X

OWSC On

18

1.6

5:35

EMTEC 80min 24X

OWSC On

33

6.7

3:21

Octron 80min 24X

OWSC On

23

1.8

3:21

Hitachi-Maxell 80min 40X

OWSC On

26

1.5

3:09

The general writing quality of YAMAHA CRW-F1DX is good and sometimes better
than its twin brother (CRW-F1E). No C2 errors reported in any of the tested
media. Of course with some media the drive performed better than other. The
best results come from Mitsubishi Chemicals 48X (OWSC on), while the worst from
EMTEC 24X and SmartBuy 32X media. When user de-activate the OWSC function, will
notice major speed increase, compared when is enabled. However the writing quality
will be worst. Again this is not that can be said confident, since with Fuji
Film 48X media, even OWSC is disabled; the writing quality is very good.

In the following table you can see the manufacturing details of the media we
used for our tests.

Name

Real Manufacturer

Code

Capacity

Mitsubishi Chemicals 80min 48x

Mitsubishi Chemicals

97m34s23f

79:59.73

Prodisc 80min 32x

Prodisc

97m32s19f

79:59.74

Hitachi-Maxell 80min 40x

Hitachi Maxell

97m25s29f

79:59.74

SmartBuy 80min 32x

Prodisc

97m32s19f

79:59.74

Emtec 80min 24x

Unknown

97m25s07f

79:59.00

SanyoDigital 80min 24x

Plasmon

97m27s19f

79:59.74

Octron 80min 24x

Ritek

97m15s17f

79:59.73

Mitsui 80min 40X

Mitsui

97m27s58f

79:59.74

YAMAHA 80min 24X

Mitsubishi

97m34s21f

79:59.74

CyberDrive 80min 48X

Ritek

97m15s17f

79:59.70

FujiFilm 80min 48X

Fuji

97m26s45f

79:59.73

Ricoh 80min 32X

Taiyo Yuden

97m24s01f

79:59.73

Maxell 80min 32X

Taiyo Yuden

97m24s01f

79:59.73

CyberDrive 80min 40X

Postech

97m26s11f

79:59.73

Mitsui 80min 32X

Mitsui

97m27s57f

79:59.74

FujiFilm 80min 40X

Fuji

97m26s45f

79:59.73

ASUS 80min 48X

Acer

97m22s67f

79:59.74

Mitsubishi Chemicals 80min 40x

Mitsubishi Chemicals

97m34s23f

79:59.74

Taiyo Yuden 80min 32X

Taiyo Yuden

97m24s01f

79:59.73

Ciba Plasmon 80min 48X

Plasmon

97m27s18f

79:59.74

CyberDrive 80min 48X

Prodisc

97m32s19f

79:59.72

8. HS-RW/Packet Tests

YAMAHA
CRW-F1DX CDR-W - Page 9

RW Writing Tests

The F1 series support 24X writing with the use of Ultra HS-RW media. The
drive can write at 10X, 16X and 24X with Ultra HS-RW. With 4X-10X HS-RW media,
the supported rewriting speeds are 4X, 8X, 10X and 12X (CLV). The CRW-F1DX support
12X re-writing with 4-10X HS-RW only with few media.

With Ultra HS-RW media, the CRW-F1DX drive starts writing at 19.31X and reaches
24.15X at 10mins. The average theoretical re-writing speed is 23.83X:

Using Nero, we saw two different performances, either with OWSC enabled:

or with OWSC disabled:

As it seems, OWSC function does affect the re-writing speed of the drive.
When it's enabled, will write almost to 20X (P-CAV) and when is disabled will
write up to 24X (P-CAV). Below are the test results, by using either OWSC on/off:

We used Ahead InCD v3.37 for the packet writing tests with the 24X Ultra
HS-RW media. The formatted disc had 534 MB of free space. We copied a 403 MB
file (403.147 kbs) from a Hard Disk (on the same PC as the writers) to the formatted
RW media using Windows Explorer (we dragged and dropped) and we completed the
test twice to eliminate any possible time measurement faults and user errors:

The external drive was slower in the writing part by 2X, and the reading
performance was exactly the same as with the CRW-F1DX.

9. Mt. Rainier Tests

YAMAHA
CRW-F1DX CDR-W - Page 9

Mt. Rainier Tests

For testing the Mt. Rainier performance of YAMAHA CRW-F1, we performed two
types of tests. The software we used was InCD v3.7.1 by Ahead Software.

First Test

After the format process, we immediately start the recording process (drag
& drop). When the drive finishes, we start the reading process back to the
HD. At this mode, the drive writes, reads the quality of the written data and
background formats the disc at the same time. For the YAMAHA CRW-F1DX we used
both 10X HS-RW media and the Ultra Speed 24X HS-RW. The recording performance
of each drive is displayed in the below table.

At the second test, we left the drive alone to complete the background formatting
and afterwards, we repeated the above tests. The recording/reading performance
in this case is higher for all the drives, since now only record & read
are performed. The disc has been scanned for bad sectors during the format process.

- Slight lower/higher performance than
the CRW-F1E, due to different firmware
- Limited media support for 44X writing speed (OWSC On)
- Medium reading error correction capabilities
- Doesn't support EFM correction for SafeDisc v2.51.021+ builds with all
drives
- Doesn't support C2 error report, according to the MMC standard
- High price

The YAMAHA CRW-F1DX offers many features to users who wish an external desktop
recorder. The drive supports both FireWire (IEEE1394) and USB2.0 interfaces,
making it a truly universal solution for both MAC/PC platforms. In addition,
the CRW-F1DX offers all the unique features of its internal brother (CRW-F1E),
DiscT@2, AudioMASTER Pro, CD-RW Audio Edit and of course Mt. Rainier format.
There are some performance differences, due to different firmware from the already
tested CRW-F1E, sometimes positive and sometimes negative.

Two improvements we saw: the drive now can read/write previously un-supported
99min CDs and handle every AudioCD protected disc! The recording performance
compared with the CRW-F1E is somewhat slower but the writing quality is improved.
There is no change in the hardware/software "EFM correction", useful
for backups. Even with the help of software of software help, the produced backups
will not playback accurately in all drives.

Lastly, the design of the drive is really attractive to user's eye and the
only drawback maybe the price of the drive that reaches up to $280. Of course
the price of all external recorders is much higher than with internal drives.
YAMAHA's CRW-F1DX offers extra features, sleek design, and dual interfaces.